Jacki weaves her movie magic again

Weaver and Robert De Niro play the parents of a depressed teacher in Silver Linings Playbook.

Matt Buchanan and Scott Ellis, The Sydney Morning Herald, report

Jacki  Weaver has emerged as a contender for another Academy Award nomination.

After winning acclaim for playing the terrifying crime matriarch "Smurf" Cody in Animal Kingdom, the veteran Australian actress's latest Hollywood movie is David O'Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, a poignant comedy about a depressed teacher (played by Bradley Cooper) who is released from a psychiatric hospital into the care of his parents (Robert De Niro and Weaver).

Fairfax critic Garry Maddox reports that the film has won the top audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, a prize previously picked up by such future Oscar winners as The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire and American Beauty.

The film industry bible, the Hollywood Reporter, says Silver Linings Playbook is a serious contender for a batch of nominations, including Weaver for best supporting actress.

Another actress being widely tipped to feature during the awards season is Quvenzhane Wallis, who stars as a sparky six-year-old named Hushpuppy in the American swamp fantasy Beasts of the Southern Wild.

One of the year's most original movies, Beasts opened modestly in Australia last weekend, taking just $121,000 in 24 cinemas.

The biggest splash in cinemas was the animated Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, which took almost $4 million.

Jacki Weaver celebrates 50 years of acting

Jacki Weaver has been acting for 50 years. Source: HWT Image Library

Fiona Byrne, The Herald Sun, reports

Jacki Weaver has reached a career highpoint, as she celebrates her 50th year as an actor.

"November 1962 is when I first played Cinderella, I was 15. 50 years -- god!" Weaver said at the Qantas Spirit of Australia party in LA yesterday.

Weaver, 64, who was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role in Animal Kingdom last year, has filmed four US movies since the Oscars and has three more movies lined up this year.

She will also shoot a pilot for a HBO TV series as well as taking to the stage in New York later in the year.

Next month she will start shooting the film, Wild Oats with Shirley MacLaine.

"She is divine. I have met her a few times and she is gorgeous," Weaver said.

She recently finished filming The Silver Linings Playbook in which she played Robert De Niro's wife and Bradley Cooper's mother.

"I was perfectly content with my career (before Animal Kingdom), I was never really out of work and I used to work really hard," she said.

"But I never expected to walk down the street in LA and get recognised all the time.

"I get more recognition here, every second stranger stops me, whereas at home I am just the old bag lady in Kings Cross with my shopping trolley."

She said her publisher was urging her to put pen to paper about her Hollywood fairytale.

"I think is it fair to say David Michod (Animal Kingdom director) has changed my life. Sometimes I think it could all evaporate tomorrow and I would not mind," she said, adding she has read about 50 film scripts in the past year.

"Thirty years ago I would have had more stamina, but I would have been more anxious about whether it would last.

"I think I have more grace because I am older and can accept what happens," she said.

Fiona Byrne travelled to LA as a guest of Qantas

Jacki Weaver's wild ride continues

The Daily Telegraph reports

THEY could almost be sisters - two quick-witted screen stalwarts not afraid to speak their minds.

So it's only fitting that Jacki Weaver has nabbed the role of Shirley MacLaine's best friend in a new US indie comedy.

It was yesterday revealed the Aussie Oscar nominee has signed on to star in Wild Oats, about two old women who flee their small Ohio town for Las Vegas after receiving a social security cheque for $900,000 instead of $900.

Alan Arkin will play the male lead and The Whole Ten Yards' Howard Deutch will direct.

The coup proves the 64-year-old is continuing to capitalise on her "overnight success" status in Tinseltown, where she moved earlier this year with partner Sean Taylor.

Weaver's once-erratic career has skyrocketed since her monstrous turn as a crime matriarch in socio-psycho drama Animal Kingdom.

Hers was the Cinderella story of this year's Academy Awards, even though she lost the best supporting actress gong to The Fighter's Melissa Leo.

Since then she has filmed Jason Segel comedy The Five Year Engagement and is currently working on the Park Chan-wook thriller Stoker, alongside Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska.

She has also just landed a part in The Silver Linings Playbook playing Bradley Cooper's mother.